Author's Preface
Twig-limbed and bustling, a figure swathed so thickly in rubious enfoldings as to be near indistinguishable from the cascade of surrounding curtain-cloth.
He emerges from the greater tangle bearing a slight, copper-gleaming service, piled assiduously and high with a night and egg-yolk tinted, pungent mass of leafiness.
Umin steps aside swiftly, having recognized the odorous burden.
Ur-saffron, so named as it is harvested from a peculiar species of deep-crocus, in a manner similar to its more sunlit and altogether, harmless counterpart.
Whereas numerous culinary masterworks yearn for the dawn-sweet kiss of its rarefied cousin, ur-saffron is the tool of poisoners and alchemists.
All of its distinctive applications being singularly lethal.
Balancing the service with a practiced ease, the man blinks at the unexpected pair, as though having emerged from out of a dark place into the momentary blindness inflicted by the numinous light of day.